


The Lost Boy

by Kurohitenshi



Category: Merlin (TV), Parked (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Child Abuse, Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution, Spoilers, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1443574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurohitenshi/pseuds/Kurohitenshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because someone is homeless and unable to escape drug addiction does not mean that his life was any less important than yours or mine. Maybe there are circumstances. Maybe there are reasons. Cathal O'Regan is determined to leave a legacy behind through a short memoir in a small leather-bound book, along with the hint of the greatest secret of all: something that this life could not fulfill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All characters are the property of BBC, Element Pictures, and Olive Films. This is merely a work of fiction.
> 
> I did a bit of research for this one, finding a lot of drug use associated with male prostitution in Dublin. It is actually a real problem there.

**The Lost Boy  
** _A Memoir of an Irish Street Child_

By Kurohitenshi

Inside a small battered brown leather book, the writing was in cursive, written so elegantly and neatly that it betrayed the true psyche of its owner. Fred had found it in the glove compartment of Cathal's yellow car right before it was picked up to be crushed. It's the only thing that's left from a life that was over too soon.  
  
Twenty-one. Most boys usually start living their lives at twenty one, graduating from uni, moving to a new flat, starting a new job with a new professional wardrobe, slowly transitioning from boy to man.  
  
Not Cathal though.  
  
Inside his warm flat, sitting in his lumpy second-hand armchair and with trepidation in his old weary heart, Fred touched the writing on the pages of Cathal's journal. Inside this journal were: powerful quotations, poetry, musical notes of composed songs, and sketches that ranged from male human bodies to funny comic creations. It also contained a short memoir that was a testament to a life that was gone too early.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Fred pursed his lips as he turned the page to read the final confessions of his young friend.

 

  **+++++++++++++**

  
In the winter of my youth

Dear Friend,  
  
This is possibly my last confession. Someone told me once that they'd be highly surprised to see me live past 30. I'm not even sure if my life will go that far. Too many reasons to count - they all said that I was a hopeless case, like a broken toy that no one can possibly fix.  
  
But I suppose I did live a life, no matter how it may end or how soon. And I owe it to myself to leave a legacy behind, even if it's only for my peace of mind. There really is no intent behind this. I don't blame anyone. I don't want to get anyone in trouble. These are just words on paper: Nothing more and nothing less.  
  
So here goes --  
  
I was an Army brat until the age of five, brimming with patriotism and pride for my hero dad. Weird isn't it, to be born into the life of constant moving with Da and Ma and with an inexplicable feeling of glory that you're helping serve your country just by being your Army Da's son? I thought I was so special when I was five years old.  
  
When I turned six, I had been so childishly upset during my birthday. Ma and I had given out invitations to my friends weeks prior. But there was no birthday party, see? It seems so trivial now as an adult, knowing that the world is much crueler but it had truly crushed me at the time. Ma had prepared a cake that morning but the party could never have happened. Da found her collapsed in the kitchen and after sitting as quiet as possible in the waiting room at the hospital for most parts of the day, we all finally found out about Ma's secret - the Cancer she'd kept secret from most of the family.  
  
It took days for Da to come home and when he did, he was in a rage. His breath reeked of alcohol. It burned my eyes as he woke me up one morning and told me that it had to be my fault. I was the evil in the house - the sin. But I was just six years old that day and couldn't understand at all what I had done wrong. I couldn't understand how I was the reason why Ma was sick - that she'd die because of me.  
  
I've always known that I was not the favorite child. My brother was always better at Football when Da took us to the field near the house. Though I thrived at playing the piano in Church and loved singing in the choir, Da hated it. When I got top honours for a piano and voice recital and was told by a prestigious music school scout that I may have a place in their institution one day, Da muttered snidely that he might as well get my balls cut off so I could sing like that forever.  
  
I was seven years old and I knew then with definite certainty that he hated me. I wish I could have hated him too but I loved him and desperately wanted him to love me back. He was Da to me and I was his son. Maybe one day, I thought, he would love me if I only tried harder.  
  
When Ma was in the hospital for chemo because of a relapse, I went to church everyday, praying on bruised knees like a proper Catholic son until I fell asleep on the floor. That was when Father Michael took a shine to me. I was eight years old when I found myself on my knees in his office, my mouth open and eyes wet with tears as I lost the only innocence I ever had. He told me that I was a good son and that my father should be proud of me. Although I was confused and anguished at what he made me do, I felt so warm at his kind words because I was so starved for them, for a father who accepted me.  
  
Unfortunately, when I tried to show my love for my father the same way that Father Michael taught me, unzipping his trousers and trying to put his cock in my mouth, instead he beat me within an inch of my life and I found myself comatose for nearly a month. The happiest part of the whole ordeal was that Ma wasn't too far away from the Children's Ward so I often saw her while I was recovering.  
  
When I was nine, I finally learned about why Da hated me. There were numerous rumours in the neighborhood about my real parentage. Everyone seemed to suspect that Ma cheated when Da was off fighting a war in his glory days, that I was the product of sin. Some dates didn't match up, they said. It was obvious that there was foul play, because as soon as I was born, a great misfortune seemed to follow my family. If I'd been born a thousand or more years ago, they'd have had the option to leave me out to die as soon as I was born. To cleanse the stain, the abomination, they’d said.  
  
I tried to ask Ma about it several times, whenever I visited her in the hospital. I tried - I tried so hard. But then, what did it matter? Ma would still be the same Ma. And Da would still be my Da. If there was some other man, I figured he'd have shown up and took me away by now.  
  
I was ten when Father Michael, with a good riddance from Da, took me on my first holiday. But instead of taking me to London to visit museums and watch theatre productions like originally planned, I was told that we were going to Denmark instead. Although I have already lost my virginity to Father Michael, it was my first time being shared with other men. They kept me naked, drunk and drugged up and always photographed me in all the ways possible.  
  
The hotel room was very beautiful though and they were kind to me in between. They kept calling me their baby boy, tugging something in my heartstrings so much that one time, I couldn't help but cry uncontrollably at how much it hurt and felt good at the same time. I had five fathers that summer who catered to everything I wanted, buying me presents and cooking my favorite food. But it was not the same. It never could. It wasn't Da. They weren't him.  
  
Eleven years old was when Da kicked me out. Rumours of his eldest son being a homo prostitute circulated in the neighborhood even though I never sold anything - everything had always been taken without an exchange of money. Ma's heart was broken, he said. She was a devout Catholic and her poor heart could not take it. How could I hurt my dying mother with the knowledge that she had brought to this world the lowest form of degenerate they had ever known? I don't know if Ma really hated me as much as Da described because he banned me from visiting her in the hospital. But the one thing I'm certain of is that I disappointed her - so maybe Da was right after all.  
  
The most positive thing I could say about being kicked out at eleven years old was that it was a good thing that it was summer so it wasn't too cold yet when I bunked out at the park with the other homeless, sharing a smoke and trying vainly to laugh at life's problems. When I could barely move because of hunger many days later, a john took pity on me, picked me up from the ground, and fucked my limp body against a cold rough wall in exchange for a few coins that's enough for soup and some warm chocolate milk and maybe marshmallows as well.  
  
But I still couldn't move afterwards. All that was on my mind was that Da rejected me and Ma would leave soon too, dying as she was in the hospital. Sometimes I really wish that I had starved to death that day. But as I lay there without purpose or hope, someone found me and carried me back to my Da's house.  
  
I was twelve when I became a permanent ward of Father Michael because my father simply couldn't look at me anymore. I was good then, doing my maths properly and loving poetry. I was in the gifted program and had the possibility of going to a music school in the city. I had a busy schedule. Be a good boy, practice piano, study loads, get fucked, pretty much get gang banged every weekend after mass, and try not to get bothered that I was starting to enjoy spreading my legs wide to strangers online. I thrived in spite of that.  
  
But then, Ma died.  
  
When I clawed desperately at my Da's door later that day, high off some drug that some junkie shot up into me, Da opened the door to his tosser slut of a son and said that Ma's dead because of me. I broke her heart and killed her.  
  
The next three years were a blur. I started to believe that I did kill Ma. I stopped going to school. Music school was just a stupid child's dream.  
  
When I finally grew pubic hair at age fourteen or fifteen, Father Michael predictably lost interest in me. I was heartbroken all over again, rejected, desperate, and in need of a home. I asked a friend of a friend to do that thing where hair could stop growing there with all the savings I had. I even got on my knees in church and desperately prayed that I be a child forever so someone would love me.  
  
But it didn't work; I was no longer what he wanted. Father Michael was kind enough to get me a yellow car and some start up money for the years that I've done service to him but all I wanted was to go home.  
  
So I tried again at age eighteen, to knock on Da's door and ask if he could accept me. I dressed up nice and proper but he couldn't even look at me for more than a few seconds, so disgusted and ashamed of me. Devastated, I stole his broken watch, a photo of him and Ma together, and stared for a moment at a happy graduation photo of my brother and Da. Disgusted at myself, I ran out desperately, my hands shaking and my eyes burning. That was the day when I started injecting Heroin.  
  
I was twenty-one years old when I met Fred. At first I thought that he could look like one of my johns, the father type who fucks hurriedly because he has kids to go home to afterwards. I loved those types, like I love the ones who call me baby and love that I keep myself bare down there. I almost try to seduce Fred a few times but somehow hold myself back since my relations with him is the only thing that’s unsullied in my life.  
  
But it is in an older lady he sets his eyes on despite my attempts to love him. It burns like a rejection because how different was I from her really? I played the piano too, like her. I was told I was good at playing it as well, even if it was a long time ago. Is it because I was born with the wrong gender?  
  
But I guess nothing really matters in the end. When life ceases, there is nothing. And this is most certainly, nearly the end of my story.  
  
My name is Cathal O'Regan. I used to be good in playing the piano. I'm decent at driving and swimming. I'm the worst son possible and you could find a lot of dirty images of me online if you’re the type that enjoys that sort of thing. My only relationship was with a pedophile priest who taught me to be a good little Bottom in sexual liaisons. I have a virgin cock but thousands of men have probably been inside my arse; they started me pretty young after all. It doesn't bother me as much as it should. I'm used to it.  
  
Presently, I get beat up every so often because I'm a drug addict who can't always find the money to pay up. I sell myself every so often at Phoenix Park so I could pay for petrol for my car, food for my belly, and Heroin for my heart.  
  
I tried countless times to do decent work but no one wants a drug addict. I've probably been raped before but I don't even know what that really means. I did fall in love once with one of my johns, a handsome and muscular Londoner named Arthur who’s married and has a son who is about my age. He does still contact me sometimes, dismayed year after year at how much I've crashed and burned despite all my attempts to distract him - to vainly try to make him laugh and smile instead. I wish he adopted me when I first met him when I was fourteen. But that’s no more than an expired dream now.  
  
I wonder if Da ever loved me. Seems as if my whole life has revolved around this thought, for every john and priest I tried to please, and even Arthur and Fred whom I loved.  
  
I'm only twenty-one but I think I will die very soon.  
  
But then again…  
  
‘To die!’ A lost boy once said. ‘To die would be an awfully big adventure.’  
  
And maybe that’s me. Maybe I’m just another lost boy. And maybe the best is yet to come.  
  
So, my dear friend, forgive me if I’ve caused offense with my crude story or if this atrocious memoir has caused you any harm. This is only a testament of my wasted life and is not so important. But it’s the only legacy I will ever have so it had to be written.  
  
There really is no intent behind this. I truly don't blame anyone because maybe it was all just bad circumstance and wrong decisions.  
  
In the end, these are just words on paper: Nothing more and nothing less. 

Yours truly,        
Cathal      

 

**+++++++++++++**

 

A few weeks later, Fred finally found the courage to call Cathal's mysterious paramour. It was easy enough to find the phone number for it was the only one in the journal. But Fred was never any good at talking to people, especially if it involved informing them of a loss.  
  
It took five rings before someone picked up.  
  
"Arthur Pendragon speaking."  
  
"Arthur…Pendragon?" Fred repeated in shock. He wanted to say it again to reconfirm but controlled himself.  
  
"Do you know who I am?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, sir. I lived in London for years before moving back to Dublin."  
  
"May I know who's calling?"  
  
"Oh… I'm sorry. My name is Fred. Fred Daly. We're mutual friends of Cathal O'Regan."  
  
There was a short pause. And then, the polite voice was gone, replaced by a cold one. "How did you get this number?"  
  
"I'm sorry, sir. Cathal instructed - "  
  
There was an annoyed huff at the other end of the line. "Where is he? Why can't he call me instead?"  
  
"Sir… Arthur. There's bad news. Cathal, he's…"  
  
"Put him on the line."  
  
"It's in the local papers and it's online. If you don't want to hear it from me."  
  
There were a few seconds of silence and then: a sharp intake of breath. In the background, there came a sudden sound of laughter as if Arthur was in the middle of a dinner party.  
  
"Is this a bad time to call?"  
  
"Fred Daly?"  
  
"Yes sir?"  
  
"Thank you for informing me. I hope I could trust you on your discretion in this private matter? The boy…" Arthur said in a tight voice, as if he was afraid of saying Cathal's name. "He wouldn't just let anyone know. I may contact you at a later time for details but… His final days? Was anyone? Did anyone? I mean to say…did he have any friends at least?"  
  
"I was with him for most of the winter, at the bay. But that night, I'm sorry but… I couldn't. I wasn't. He…uh…"  
  
"No," The voice was polite once more, but it sounded rough with controlled emotion. "That's enough. Thank you for informing me. Good-bye."  
  
In the background, there was a female voice. Sweetly, she said, "Who's that, my dear King?" before Arthur answered "No one important. Just official state business, love."  
  
A click. And the call was disconnected. 

**+++++++++++++**

  

_For Arthur-_

_The spring was wrought with_  
 _Youth’s fierce intention_  
 _But summer’s brutal heat_  
 _Scorched with fierce rejection_  
  
 _Autumn came in bitter streets,_  
 _With blind fever of addiction_  
 _In the winter of my youth,_  
 _Death became a dear companion_  
  
 _Apologies is all that’s left_  
 _From this secret devotion_  
 _And the aspiration that next life_  
 _Will come with a lack of inhibition_  
  
Cathal O’Regan  
Dublin, Ireland


End file.
